Impersonation, Heidi Pitlor
Impersonation, Heidi Pitlor
List: $27.99 | Sale: $19.59
Club: $13.99

Impersonation

Author: Heidi Pitlor

Narrator: Dylan Moore

Unabridged: 11 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/18/2020


Synopsis

“By turns revealing, hilarious, dishy, and razor-sharp, Impersonation lives in that rarest of sweet spots: the propulsive page-turner for people with high literary standards.” —Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers

Allie Lang is a professional ghostwriter and a perpetually broke single mother to a young boy. Years of navigating her own and America’s cultural definitions of motherhood have left her a lapsed idealist. Lana Breban is a powerhouse lawyer, economist, and advocate for women’s rights with designs on elected office. She also has a son. Lana and her staff have decided she needs help softening her public image and that a memoir about her life as a mother will help.

When Allie lands the job as Lana’s ghostwriter, it seems as if things will finally go Allie’s way. At last, she thinks, there will be enough money not just to pay her bills but to actually buy a house. After years of working as a ghostwriter for other celebrities, Allie believes she knows the drill: she has learned how to inhabit the lives of others and tell their stories better than they can.

But this time, everything becomes more complicated. Allie’s childcare arrangements unravel; she falls behind on her rent; her subject, Lana, is better at critiquing than actually providing material; and Allie’s boyfriend decides to go on a road trip toward self-discovery. But as a writer for hire, Allie has gotten too used to being accommodating. At what point will she speak up for all that she deserves?  

A satirical, incisive snapshot of how so many of us now live, Impersonation tells a timely, insightful, and bitingly funny story of ambition, motherhood, and class.
 

About Heidi Pitlor

Heidi Pitlor is a former senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and has been the series editor for The Best American Short Stories since 2007. She is the author of the novels The Birthdays, The Daylight Marriage, and Impersonation.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Katie on August 09, 2020

When I first read the publisher synopsis for this fiction book and saw the main character was a ghostwriter it was enough of a hook for me to want to read it. I read celeb memoirs frequently and I tend to think more highly of the celebrities who list a co-author on the book cover rather than the one......more

Goodreads review by sandia on August 11, 2020

To be quite honest, this whole book kind of reads as a self-conscious assertion that the author is on the right side of every single divisive hot topic (race, class, feminism, the me too movement, politics, etc.) and yet so much of this—especially race—is handled pretty poorly. If we’re going to set......more

Goodreads review by Tara on July 19, 2020

I galloped through this book— I’m fascinated by the world of ghost writing, and really enjoyed how politics, mothering, ghost writing and other themes were woven together. Loved the imperfect and three dimensional Allie, the heroine of the book. Her relationship with her son is beautifully drawn; as......more

Goodreads review by Amy on May 22, 2021

3.5. I think it was both fascinating and painful. Painful, because I found that in places it literally hurt to read it. I think it was an interesting take on our social and political landscape today, and I found I was both sad, intrigued, and a little sick of it. I am definitely in a time for new ho......more

Goodreads review by Donna on September 11, 2020

My thanks go to Algonquin Books for the review copy. This book is for sale now. Allie is a single mother and a professional ghost writer. Because her income is sporadic, she picks up money between publishers’ paychecks substitute teaching and landscaping. She’s always broke, always paying the most p......more


Quotes

“Looking for a book that fires up the synapses? Check out Heidi Pitlor’s Impersonation . . . Pitlor’s voice is witty and brisk, bringing warmth and light to questions of identity, independence and, yes, intellectual property. Who owns your stories? How much are they worth? Allie Lang’s answers are complicated. Watching her reach them is like sitting down with a refreshingly honest friend who skips the part about how great her life is and dives right into the real stuff. We need more friends like this. Authors, too.”
The New York Times Book Review

“Both the story and its resourceful heroine are fresh, intelligent, and charming."
Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“In a novel that’s smart, surprising, thought provoking . . . Pitlor offers an astute study of what it means to be a woman today."
Library Journal

“[A] searing and nuanced exploration of identity."
Booklist

“Pitlor’s smart and thought-provoking latest explores the complexities of feminism, privilege, and the telling of one’s life story . . . The sharply observed depictions of how lives are shaped by financial status ring all too true. Fans of Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion will want to take a look.”    
Publishers Weekly

“By turns revealing, hilarious, dishy, and razor-sharp, Impersonation lives in that rarest of sweet spots: the propulsive page-turner for people with high literary standards.”
Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers

“Smart, funny, and provocative, Impersonation tunnels through our current politically-charged American landscape with humor and empathy. It's a story of parenting—and surviving—in a time when the messy realities of everyday life often clash with ideology. As page-turningly readable as it is relatable. I’ll be recommending to my book group.”
Jessica Shattuck, author of The Women in the Castle
 
“Heidi Pitlor has written a wonderfully rare thing: a comedy of manners set in the 21st century that brilliantly grapples with some of the more thorny issues of class, privilege, and parenting of our day. Smart, funny, and generous in spirit, Impersonation is an engaging meditation on who controls the narrative and why it mattersA terrific read that will have you hooked from page one.”
Kate Walbert, author of A Short History of Women

Impersonation is the book we need now: an unflinching look at our current moment, and at questions few of us dare to ask. If our personas do good in the world, does it matter what we did to create them? How much hypocrisy are liberals willing to tolerate? Can women raise good men? Provocative, heartfelt, and often hilarious, this is a novel I’ll be thinking about for a long time to come.”
Anna Solomon, author of The Book of V
 
"With refreshing humor and an endearing charm all her own, Heidi Pitlor channels the narrative slyness of Rachel Cusk and the political acumen of Rebecca Solnit to deliver this zeitgeisty novel about the struggles of anonymity, accountability, modern-day mothering, and making ends meet in the gig economy. As both loss and possibility swirl around our lost but scrappy heroine, you can’t help but root for her to claim her own voice and personhood. A smart behind-the-scenes tour of the murky world of publishing, politics, and the good people who get caught in the cross-fire.”
Christopher Castellani, author of Leading Men
 
“For our heroine Allison, this is her story of survival and endurance in these maddening times. She goes to extraordinary measures for her son and her work, yet the path is not always clear, and far from easy. A gifted storyteller, Pitlor is also not afraid to ask the tough questions. What does it mean to raise good boys? Good people? What does it mean to be a woman, a feminist, a believer in others and, above all, in yourself?”
Weike Wang, author of Chemistry